


Desk Job

by eyra



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Alternate Universe - Office, Harry Potter Next Generation, M/M, Sex Toys, Slash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-30
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-02-06 21:34:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1873293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyra/pseuds/eyra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sketch-man's dick has ended up a little larger than James originally intended, but he’s working with a really blunt pencil and hey, a guy can dream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Gillian and Keith are at it again. Everyone’s known about the affair for months but they’re both still desperately trying to keep up the charade that they aren’t shagging in the copy room after hours. The only reason neither of them have been fired yet is because she’s the Director’s sister-in-law, but James still finds it laughable that they genuinely believe they’re fooling anyone, especially today. The walls of the purpose-built office block are paper-thin and James can see every employee in the room trying to subtly strain their ears to catch a snippet of this morning’s shouting match.

The door of Conference Room 2 opens suddenly and Gillian slinks out, her eyes red-rimmed as she clutches what looks like half a pack of Kleenex. She’s always crying, that one, but then James reasons that he’d probably cry too if he had to suck Keith’s dick. Keith, with his bulging beer belly and ruddy red cheeks. And ginger hair sprouting out of his nostrils. Disgusting. _At least she’s getting some,_ says the mournful, longing voice in James’s head. He might’ve been vaguely jealous if he didn’t find the pair of them so repulsive. Either way, they make for pretty good office theatre; nothing like a bit of cross-department sparring and passionate slamming of doors to shake the Monday morning cobwebs off and set James up for another demoralising week of pushing buttons.

This wasn’t supposed to be a long-term thing. James had used the words “stop gap” at every opportunity when telling his uni mates about the interview in some kind of vain attempt at justifying why he was taking such shitty, aimless employment, but truthfully he hadn’t really known what that had meant – just one of those bullshit graduate terms he’d unwittingly picked up sometime in the summer after leaving York. Three years later, James can only assume it means “get comfortable, lose any and all ambition, knowledge and skills gained from one’s twenty-one thousand pound degree, then fuck around all day looking at the Taj Mahal on Google Maps and drawing anatomically improbable pornographic sketches on the corner of one’s notepad.”

The only comfort James can take from his life at the moment is the knowledge that most of his friends, siblings and cousins are in the same disappointing position: Hugo’s scaling the dizzy heights of McDonald’s front-of-house management (much to the horror of his mother), Albus is pushing papers part-time at some insurance company back home, and two out of three of his housemates from university have actually given up searching for purpose in the corporate world and buggered off to Cambodia indefinitely. James is beginning to think they had the right idea.

It’s not that his current situation is completely without joy; he has a relatively comfortable chair in a relatively well-lit corner of the office, an hour for lunch, and he can mooch off company WiFi without anyone knowing because the IT guy cares even less about his job than James does. The main problem is twofold; one, the work is shit. James highly doubts that anyone dreams of dealing in competitively priced office supplies for a living, but James feels particularly out of place in this mundane industry and often wishes for their warehouse to burn down (without anyone getting seriously hurt, he always adds as a guilty afterthought) just so he’d have a decent excuse to get off his arse and find a new job. It hasn’t happened yet, but that doesn’t stop the elaborate “random arson attack” fantasies from playing out in James’s mind during exceptionally dull morning meetings. The second issue is the people. James can count the number of decent human beings in the company on one hand. Half of one hand, actually; his next-cubicle-neighbour Martha isn’t too bad when she’s not being a total bitch, and there’s a chap in Services who once made James a spectacular latte using the fancy coffee machine in Marketing. James can never remember his name but he remembers that latte, and for that he’s happy enough to grant the guy “Acceptable Person” status. The rest of them range from the criminally boring to the downright unpleasant, and James has never in his three years felt the need or inclination to socialise with any of them beyond the requisite small talk in the staff break room, and even then he only allows himself to become engaged in conversation when it’s absolutely unavoidable. He’s come to count his noise-cancelling headphones as his most valuable possession after discovering their usefulness in drowning out the absolute tripe that the Sales and Customer Care lot come out with on their lunch breaks; he truly doesn’t give a fuck about who’s dating who and who shagged who last night and who’s cheating on who with whom (aside from Gillian and Keith, obviously. James does admittedly have a soft spot for that particular mess of a relationship).

He tries not to think about the possible explanation for his not wanting to involve himself in the “relationship” conversations being his own eternally-single status. He’d briefly dated a girl a couple of years older than him last winter, mostly for lack of anything else to do with his time, and it had been fine but not hugely engaging and James hadn’t been particularly torn up when it had come to its inevitable end. She was a sweet girl – not a whole lot going on upstairs, but sweet – and she gave decent head but beyond that there wasn’t much between them, and she’d got bored after a few lukewarm months. Which was fair enough, really. Whatever.

What the otherwise pointless non-relationship _had_ done was sway all of James’s colleagues towards the previously unconfirmed understanding that James was in fact straight. Nice and normal, nothing controversial here, thank you very much. A bit too far left of the staunch centre-right standing that the mostly white, mostly middle class town in which the company was located desperately clung to, but nevertheless a decent “team fit”, which was another unwelcome fleck of corporate bullshit that James hadn’t even known he hated until he got sucked into this godless place. There had been a gay guy in the Marketing department last year, but he’d only lasted six weeks before they’d kicked him out on account of “creative differences.” Bollocks. More like they’d found his Facebook page and seen the photos of him doing body shots at Pride. Every now and then, usually in a fit of Netflix-induced rage after watching another Louis Theroux documentary about Midwestern bigots, James thinks that maybe he should do The Right Thing and just flick his Facebook status over to “Interested in: men and women”, perhaps with an accompanying and suitably moving post about being true to himself and not hiding behind societal masks of heteronormativity. Shake things up a bit, see what the office “traditionalists” have to say about that. But then Albus will retweet another photo of Megan Fox, the perv, and James will spend way too long staring at her tits and he’ll reason that there’s no sense in rocking the boat when he could so easily end up with Megan Fox, or failing that, with A Girl and he’ll have scandalised the office and their delicate Tory sensibilities for nothing. Which probably makes him a coward or something, but whatever. He’s the one who has to work with the pricks.

As if on cue, the door of Conference Room 2 opens again and Keith ambles out looking like an enraged walrus. The look is pretty normal for Keith, but the faint trail of spittle clinging to his ginger moustache is new and James feels vaguely ill as he goes back to his notepad. Today’s sketch features a lithe, beautifully-endowed gentleman reclining on a chaise longue in a box of a room with his legs bent at the knee and spread wantonly across the couch. His dick has ended up a little larger than James originally intended, but he’s working with a really blunt pencil and a man can dream. He’s just adding some light shading to the discarded silk dressing gown tossed carelessly at the foot of the chaise longue when he’s rudely interrupted by Alistair, his supervisor, sticking his ugly head over the low partition of James’s cubicle.

“Got a sec, Potter?”

“Uhh, yeah,” James splutters, hastily turning the page in his notepad to an old print-out from Accounts and scribbling “Fax to Jeremy” at the top of the page, because it’s the first thing that comes to mind and he thinks it looks vaguely official. “Just got to finish this…” he murmurs, grabbing his “INVOICE PAID” stamp from the open drawer to his right and punching it in the middle of the sheet. He has no idea if this invoice has been paid. He has no idea who Jeremy is. Alistair seems to buy it though, drumming his chubby fingers rhythmically along the top of the partition as James folds the form in half and slips it into his out-tray before looking up with an expectant smile.

“What can I do for you?”

Alistair stops his drumming and fixes James with his patented “let’s get down to business” look, which means that whatever he’s about to ask James to do, the answer is going to be “Yes of course Alistair, I’d love to, anything for the company” lest Alistair file another complaint to Senior Management about James’s “attitude”. God, Alistair’s a prick.

“It’s Teddy’s trial day today,” Alistair proclaims, raising his eyebrows dramatically as if he’s announcing something of grave importance that may change James’s life forever. James doubts it. “Have you got ten minutes to show him the ropes in Purchasing?”

 _Teddy. Teddy, Teddy…_ James rattles the name around in his brain for a few seconds and comes up with a total blank.

“Uhh,” he hedges eloquently, pouting his lips in thought and tapping his pencil against his notepad. “Sure…” he finishes, nodding slowly.

“Great stuff,” Alistair grins, showing his yellowing teeth and turning James’s stomach for the second time this morning. “He’ll be in at 11. Just explain the basic process to him, tell him where you fit into the big picture then send him over to Sales, yeah?”

He raps the partition twice with his knuckles – fucking irritating habit, James thinks – and bounds off in search of someone else to pester. James watches him go distractedly.

 _Teddy…_ still nothing. Frowning, he pulls up his Outlook and tabs to the search bar. Maybe he missed an email somewhere. He taps “teddy” into the form and hits Enter. Nothing. He has the same non-result for “theodore” and “edward”, and when “new guy” returns yet another blank page he gives up, leaning back in his swivel chair to peer into the next cubicle.

“Martha,” he whispers, his chair balancing precariously on its back wheels. “Who’s Teddy?”

“New designer,” Martha mutters without looking away from the papers she’s filing into plastic wallets. “Walk-in. No interview.”

That explains it.

“Ohhh,” James murmurs, his face contorting a little as if Martha’s just told him that the new guy is 400lbs and covered in boils. Walk-ins are always dicks. It’s par for the course here at Nepotism Ltd. – if you’re related to, shagging, next door neighbours of or otherwise linked to anyone in Senior Management, you’re pretty much guaranteed a position as soon as you walk in, regardless of your aptitude, and a better desk than the likes of James and Martha occupy despite having been here for years and having earned their jobs on actual merit rather than family connections or loose, ambitious morals. _So Teddy’s just another prick with connections,_ James concludes, rocking back onto all four wheels of his chair and flipping his notepad back to his sketch. He grabs his pencil sharpener as he glances habitually at his phone on the corner of his desk – no new messages – then reapplies himself to finishing the more detailed aspects of the sketch-man’s crotch with his newly pointy pencil.

 _Some of us actually earned our jobs,_ he thinks bitterly as he waits for 11 o’clock. _Bloody Teddy._


	2. Chapter 2

Time slips away easily when James is engrossed in his art, and an hour later finds him chewing on the end of his pencil as he peers critically down at his work. It’s not bad – as far as notepad doodles go – but there’s something missing. James ponders for a moment more, tapping the end of his pencil against his bottom lip, then smiles as inspiration hits and he begins to outline a huge, glistening dildo sticking right out of the man’s-

“Teddy!”

A piercing shriek wrenches James rudely from his thoughts and his head snaps up in annoyance, scowling across the room to see Diane lumbering up the aisle between the two rows of Customer Care desks, her ample frame barely squeezing through the gap and a wide, toothy grin on her chubby face. She disappears behind the partition wall that sections off their half of the upstairs office, which is presumably where this Teddy bloke is standing. James doesn’t much care; he already knows he doesn’t like him.

Rolling his eyes at the continued high-pitched yabbering coming from Diane’s direction, James hunches over in his chair and sets about shading in the man’s ambitiously large toy, wondering absently about what he’s going to have for tea. There’s still half a quiche left in the fridge – reduced at M&S to 79p because the crust was all smashed – and James thinks he’s got some garlic bread in the freezer. There’s definitely an old tin of beans in one of the cupboards, and the carrot sticks he bought at the weekend in another half-hearted attempt at being healthy _might_ still be in-date. James nods vaguely to himself as he erases then re-pencils the base of the man’s dildo. Sounds like a good square meal.

“That’s brave.”

James jumps, his face immediately flushing with a deep heat as he drops his pencil and hurriedly flips the page on his notepad, scattering sheets of paper everywhere in a fumbling attempt to hide his sketch.

“Uhhh…” he splutters, clearing his throat as he looks up into the face of what he would later come to describe (to no one in particular) as a man one could happily compare to some kind of god. Large, almond-shaped eyes peer out from behind almost femininely-long eyelashes, their deep brown colour a bewitching contrast to the muted turquoise of the man’s hair, which looks so soft James unthinkingly wants to reach out and touch it. An amused smile is pulling at the corner of the god’s perfect mouth, and James fancies for a moment that he’s actually still in bed and dreaming. He hopes he isn’t, because he’s put a lot of time into today’s drawing and he’d hate to wake up and find that it didn’t exist, but the man standing over him in a faded grey shirt and tight black jeans is making him doubt himself.

“Uhh…” he hedges again, all words having apparently absented his mind in the face of such distracting divinity. “Wha-?”

The man chuckles, nodding towards James’s notepad with his perfect head. His perfect turquoise head.

“I said that’s brave.”

James doesn’t know if the god is talking about the facetiousness of James drawing porn on company time or the bold girth of the sketch-man’s sex toy. Either way, James’s brain is still giving him nothing.

The man doesn’t seem fazed.

“I’m Teddy,” he offers, smiling as he pulls up a spare chair and drops a large, rectangular folder and beaten-looking leather satchel at the side of James’s desk. “Alistair said you’d have ten minutes for me?”

“Urm… yep,” James nods distractedly, his mind slowly trying to catch up with the situation. So Teddy isn’t a prick; he’s an angel from heaven. _Interesting_ , James thinks as he pushes his tainted notepad aside and wheels his chair a little to the right to make room for Teddy, who, James notices, has legs that seem to go on forever and rather big feet. James feels the blood from his flushed face start to drain southwards.

“So,” Teddy says lightly, apparently unaffected by James’s sudden and unexpected journey towards mild arousal. “Purchasing?”

James coughs again, nodding and doing his best to look knowledgeable and professional instead of perverted and socially-challenged.

“Yes,” he agrees. “Purchasing.”

Teddy smiles.

“And it’s James, right?” he prompts. His voice is another problem altogether; it’s soft, muted like his hair, but at the same time just the right side of gravelly and deeper than James would expect when he casts his eyes again over the man’s almost _pretty_ features.

“Yes,” James affirms flatly, his attention and eloquence once again floored by the perfection before him. “James.”

“Ok,” Teddy nods, still looking amused. “Has Alistair told you much about me?”

_What, like you’re single, gay and looking for someone to fuck in the copy room, spend Valentine’s Day with and potentially marry within the next 6 to 12 months?_ thinks James. _No, Alistair didn’t mention that._

He settles for shaking his head dumbly, his mind now dancing over the finer points of the “fucking in the copy room” scenario. _Move over, Gillian and Keith._

“Ok,” Teddy repeats, his perfect smile still making James’s heart cry – or something poetic like that – and his deep brown eyes narrowing slightly in either laughter or genuine concern for James’s mental wellbeing. “Well, I’m freelance,” he continues, running a large, tanned hand through his hair. “So I’m in full-time for the next two weeks, then I’ll just be coming on Mondays and Fridays.”

James nods, captivated. Teddy wisely takes this as a sign to keep talking.

“I’m mainly going to be helping out with the packaging designs. I think Alistair wants me to start on the new line of staplers?”

“Right,” mutters James. “Staplers.”

“Yes,” Teddy chuckles, nodding. “Staplers.”

There’s a moment of silence – tangibly awkward on James’s part, but Teddy keeps smiling softly, his gentle eyes still fixed on James’s dazed face.

_Get it together, Potter,_ snaps a sharp voice in James’s head. It might belong to Albus. James frowns, straightening himself in his chair and tearing his gaze away from Teddy to squint at his markedly less distracting computer screen.

“Ok,” he says, his voice a little stronger now that he’s not looking into the eyes of beauty personified. “Purchasing.”

He spends the next five minutes walking Teddy through the various screens of the grey back-office system through which he sends all their stock orders, his eyes fixed resolutely on the monitor and only darting back to Teddy when the tall man has a question or asks for clarification on one of James’s points. It’s a boring process: get an order list from Buying, input the stock codes, ring up a total, clear the funds with Accounts, fax the order to the supplier. Boring, but mercifully unarousing, and by the time James is done he can just about breathe normally again.

“So there you go,” he finishes, daring to look Teddy in the eye again. “Thrilling stuff.”

Teddy laughs, the corners of his eyes crinkling a little, and James notices that the bridge of his straight nose is peppered with faint freckles.

“Thrilling,” Teddy agrees playfully. “Thanks for showing me.”

“Anytime,” James answers, managing to quirk his own lips into a soft smile that he hopes doesn’t look predatory. He glances at the clock behind Teddy and sees that they still have three minutes of their allotted time left. _The things you could do in three minutes,_ leers the seedy part of his brain, the copy room fantasy edging back to the forefront of James’s mind as he feels his face heat up again and he fumbles desperately for a coherent sentence to throw out before he’s once again unable to form words.

“So what else do you do?” he blurts out, crossing his legs and pulling his notepad onto his lap just in case.

“I have a couple of other contracts,” Teddy nods, running his hand through his magical hair again. James listens as he lists off a few local businesses, struggling to absorb anything when Teddy’s tanned bicep is flexing like that. “But my main client’s been Ann Summers for a few years now.”

James is back in the room.

“Beg your pardon?” he asks flatly, certain he’s misheard.

Teddy chuckles.

“Ann Summers,” he repeats, chewing on his full bottom lip for a moment as he gauges James’s understanding or lack thereof. “Sex toys?”

“You design sex toys,” James states, his voice sounding distant to his own ears as the sketch-man’s hair fades to turquoise and James’s trousers become uncomfortably tight. Again.

“Well, I design the packaging,” Teddy clarifies, gesturing towards his folder leaning against the leg of James’s desk.

“Right, right, you do packages” James nods quickly, trying to rein himself in. “Packaging!” he corrects himself, his eyes going wide.

Teddy just laughs again.

“Packages,” he nods, chewing on his bottom lip again, and James thinks he might’ve died and gone to heaven.

“Do you get staff discount?”

The question is out of his mouth before he can stop himself and he wants to weep the moment he’s said it. Luckily, Alistair chooses that exact moment to burst back into the room and begin announcing last week’s sales figures to the office at large, distracting James and Teddy from their conversation before Teddy has a chance to react.

James has never hated Alistair less.

He takes Alistair’s rambling recital as an opportunity to have a quiet word with himself. Yes, Teddy is almost upsettingly attractive. Yes, he works with sex toys. But James still has a job to do, and Teddy still presumably got _his_ job off the back of some random connection to someone in management so James is still morally obliged to hate him, at least a little bit. The thought calms James’s growing arousal, although not by much, and he steels himself to focus on the figures that Alistair is rattling off. He doesn’t even notice Teddy leaning closer until he feels a soft breath against his neck and hears his deep, whispered response.

_“50 percent.”_


	3. Chapter 3

James doesn't get the chance to talk to Teddy again for the rest of the day. _It’s probably for the best,_ sneers the Albus-sounding self-critical voice in his head when he remembers what an absolute tit he’s still sure he made out of himself this morning. Teddy was probably just being generous by playing along; or he thinks James is tapped, and that was his way of humouring him.

Tuesday finds Teddy once again absent from James’s life as the harpies from Accounts lure him downstairs to purportedly run through his rates for the entire fucking day, and Wednesday’s a write-off too because Alistair drags James into some stupid department workshop that doesn't finish until 5, by which point Teddy is already packing up his things from the desk at the other end of the upstairs office and James has to slope off home alone still feeling vaguely embarrassed about Monday.

But James _notices_ Teddy. It’s fast becoming an addiction, noticing him, and James doesn't know if that’s romantic or something he should be locked up for but it’s bloody hard to stop.

On Tuesday, Teddy brushes past James in the break room as he tries to reach the communal microwave, with a gentle smile and a soft “Sorry” as James feels Teddy’s groin press momentarily against his backside. He notices that Teddy’s jeans are well-filled, and he has to take himself outside for some fresh air to clear his head.

He notices Teddy’s crescent moon tattoo on the inside of his left wrist, and the way he cuts his slice of pizza into small, bitesize pieces at lunch before starting to eat it. On Wednesday it snows, and he notices the way Teddy still has glistening flecks of white stuck to his turquoise hair when he enters the office in a cuddly-looking duffle coat and a thick, tartan scarf.

He especially notices when Diane and her cronies are gossiping about Teddy by the coffee machine on Wednesday afternoon. He strains his ears to hear, feigning concentration on a sales chart pinned to the wall a few paces down from their group, and manages to glean a few new details.

“-just moved in next door, yes,” beams Diane, clutching her sugary tea. “He’s such a dear.”

“By himself?” pushes Alison eagerly, her eyes hungry when James glances sideways at them. _Pathetic._

“By himself,” Diane nods with a knowing smile, her crimson lips curling upwards in a disgusting display of desperation and James doesn’t know whether to laugh or vomit. _Like they have a fucking chance,_ he thinks dismissively, turning back to the sales chart as he tries to drown out the snide voice in his head that reminds him he’s not exactly “in there” with Teddy either.

Thursday brings even more snow, and at quarter-past nine James is still trying to coax some feeling into his frozen fingers when a quiet voice startles him from his frantic hand-rubbing.

“You need some help warming up?”

James blinks owlishly up at Teddy, who’s all tousled hair and cold-flushed cheeks as he leans casually against the partition at the side of James’s cubicle, grinning down at him.

“S-sorry?” stutters James, his mind completely thrown as seems to be fast becoming the norm when Teddy’s around. _Did he just say…?_

“I said have you got five minutes to look through the new budget with me?” Teddy says lightly, pulling up a chair and sinking gracefully into it beside James, his long legs stretching out under the desk. “I need to make a start on the Pilkington’s artwork but I could do with knowing how much leeway we’ve got with the printing costs.”

_Oh help,_ thinks James as he feels Teddy’s thigh knock gently against his own and his breathing immediately kicks up a notch to keep pace with his heartbeat. He hasn’t felt this irrationally affected by someone since he had that thing for his Stats lecturer in his 3 rd year of uni, and this time it’s _worse_ because at least his lecturer had been married, straight and 100% not interested. Teddy, on the other hand, is turning out to be a real puzzle.

“Sure, yep,” James nods as their legs knock together again under the desk. “Let me just, uhh…”

He fumbles around for his mouse, which is still hidden under his snow-flecked scarf that he dumped on the desk when he came in from the cold fifteen minutes ago. He sees Teddy smile out of the corner of his eye.

“Nice scarf.”

“Ha,” James laughs nervously, firing up the back office system on his monitor. “Thanks. It’s erm… my grandma made it for me.”

_Oh wow,_ drawls the disparaging voice inside his head. _What a turn on._

Teddy, however, seems unperturbed, and his smile grows as he watches James hurriedly try to stuff the scarf into the drawer under his desk.

“Cute,” Teddy grins, his eyes crinkling adorably.

James doesn’t know if that’s a good sign or a bad sign. Between Netflix and having no money or desire to spend time with People, James is rather out of practice on the ‘going out into the world and flirting’ front, and he’s not sure if what Teddy’s doing right now _is_ flirting, or if he’s just being friendly, or if he’s taking the piss because he’s figured out that James fancies him. “Cute” could mean all manner of things, but not necessarily that Teddy’s interested.

“Anyway,” laughs Teddy, and James realises he’s been staring again. And probably drooling, if his recent comportment is anything to go by. “The budget?”

 “Right, yep. Budget.”

James spends the next few minutes pulling up various balance sheets on his screen, explaining to Teddy the different payment terms they set for each supplier and what that means for him and how much money he’s got to spend on the packaging design. Teddy, in all his endearing naivety on just how dull the company really is, looks genuinely interested.

“So this figure,” James finishes, highlighting the balance at the bottom of one window. “Shows how much you’ve got to play with on your next project.”

“Wow,” murmurs Teddy, raising his eyebrows. “It’s big.”

“Yep, it’s erm… it’s quite big,” James agrees. He should then go on to explain that the budget is only so lenient this quarter because they got a huge payoff from a supplier just before Christmas who had sold them half a million faulty hole-punchers, and that next quarter Teddy probably won’t have half as much money to spend on his packaging, but right now he’s having trouble concentrating because he’s not entirely sure they’re still talking about the budget and his trousers are feeling increasingly tight.

“Good,” Teddy nods, smiling sideways at him. “It’s always good to have plenty to, as you say, “play with” when it comes to packages.”

_Jesus Christ in heaven._ James is like a rabbit caught in headlights as Teddy grins and turns back to the screen, scanning the numbers again, and James may lead a sheltered existence these days but now this is _definitely_ flirting. It _must_ be. Or at least he hopes so, because he’s gone from zero to just about fully erect in an alarmingly short space of time and he really wants some justification for such an embarrassing display of desperation. Clearing his throat, he smoothes his tie down distractedly and shuffles his chair further under his desk, praying that Teddy won’t notice his situation.

“Thanks for this, James,” Teddy says softly as he nudges James’s thigh with his own _again_ , and now he’s definitely doing that on purpose. “Really helpful.”

With one last glance at the figures on James’s screen, Teddy stands and wheels his borrowed chair back to its rightful place, throwing James another grateful smile before strolling off back across the office to his own temporary cubicle near the Customer Care desks. James watches him go, letting out a long, slow breath. He’s done for. If Teddy is going to keep this contract and be rubbing his thigh up against James’s leg twice a week, James is absolutely done for and will absolutely be coming in his pants at his station before the month is out. He slopes forward, leaning his elbows on his desk and resting his head in his hands as he takes another calming breath, unspeakably grateful that it’s Martha’s day off today and he’s got no one in close proximity to spectate as he desperately tries to calm himself. He takes another breath, and another, and then he’s inconveniently interrupted by the sound of an incoming email.

Shuffling further under his desk still, James sighs, resigned to spending the rest of the day uncomfortable, and clicks on his inbox, a new message springing up on his monitor.

 

**To:** James Potter  <j.s.potter@northernsupplies.co.uk>  
 **From:** Edward Lupin  <e.r.lupin@northernsupplies.co.uk>  
 **Sent:** 7 January 2014 09:28  
 **Subject:** Large packages and great figures

Hey James,

Mind emailing over that sales figures report Alistair was talking about yesterday? I need to get started on the boxes for the new flatbed scanners and I could do with knowing how many we’re going to shift.

Cheers,  
Teddy

p.s. Are these emails monitored?  
  
Edward Lupin  
Designer, Northern Supplies Ltd.

 

James frowns at his screen. Odd question. He scans the message again to see if he hasn’t missed something – something that would set the censorship alarm bells ringing – but it’s totally innocuous. And then he spots the subject line, and any progress James has made in the past couple of minutes to will his erection down go straight out the window as his mind races with the possibilities of where this could be going. _Large packages and great figures._ Teddy _cannot_ be so dense as to not see the double entendre there, especially when he’s just been over here talking about whatever they were actually talking about and pressing himself against James’s thigh.

Glancing over at the IT Support Desk in the corner, where Geoff the technician is currently not-so-covertly playing on his vintage Game Boy Colour under his desk, James hits “Reply”.

 

**To:** Edward Lupin  <e.r.lupin@northernsupplies.co.uk>  
 **From:** James Potter  <j.s.potter@northernsupplies.co.uk>  
 **Sent:** 7 January 2014 09:30  
 **Subject:** RE: Large packages and great figures  
 **Attached:** scanners-report-2013.xls

Hi Teddy,

Here’s the report – just let me know if you want anything else.

James

p.s. No, Geoff doesn’t care. Why?

James Potter  
Purchasing Assistant, Northern Supplies Ltd.

 

He hits “Send”, chewing anxiously on his thumbnail as he peers over to the other side of the room to try catch a glimpse of Teddy, but all he can see is a shock of turquoise hair above the cubicle divider. A moment later, James’s computer pings again with a new message and he quickly fumbles to open it.

 

**To:** James Potter  <j.s.potter@northernsupplies.co.uk>  
 **From:** Edward Lupin  <e.r.lupin@northernsupplies.co.uk>  
 **Sent:** 7 January 2014 09:32  
 **Subject:** RE: Large packages and great figures

Hi James,

Thanks, that’s perfect. I’ll certainly bear that in mind.

Teddy

p.s. Just checking. Do you want to go get yourself off in the bathroom?

Edward Lupin  
Designer, Northern Supplies Ltd.

 

James has never minimised a window faster in his life. Eyes wide and cheeks rapidly flushing, he glances covertly over both shoulders before peering back at his screen in shock. Carefully, making sure to keep the email pop-up as small as possible, James brings the message back up and quickly scans the text.

_Do you want to go get yourself off in the bathroom?_

_Right_ , thinks James, frowning at the monitor. _You’re not a total idiot. There is a logical explanation for this. Figure it out._

He starts by taking each syllable in isolation, sounding out every letter in his mind to make sure he’s at least getting the words right. Then he checks for punctuation, just in case Teddy missed a comma somewhere that would totally change the meaning of the post-script. Finding nothing amiss, James slowly rereads the entire email one more time, and when he’s finished and none-the-wiser as to what the fuck is going on, he risks glancing up in Teddy’s direction. Soft grey eyes meet startled but quite-obviously-aroused green ones, and Teddy gives James a tiny smile before glancing purposefully at his own screen, then back to James.

Swallowing hard and shifting slightly on his chair in a fruitless attempt to lessen the near-painful pressure between his legs, James raises his slightly shaking hands to his keyboard and slowly taps out a reply.

 

**To:** Edward Lupin  <e.r.lupin@northernsupplies.co.uk>  
 **From:** James Potter  <j.s.potter@northernsupplies.co.uk>  
 **Sent:** 7 January 2014 09:35  
 **Subject:** RE: Large packages and great figures

??????????????

James Potter  
Purchasing Assistant, Northern Supplies Ltd.

 

That’s all he’s got. In amongst the white noise, utter confusion and “I’m getting quite close to coming in my trousers” panic, the best his brain can churn out right now is a line of startled question marks, but James thinks it gets his point across. He doesn’t have to wait long until another ping announces a reply landing in his inbox.

 

**To:** James Potter  <j.s.potter@northernsupplies.co.uk>  
 **From:** Edward Lupin  <e.r.lupin@northernsupplies.co.uk>  
 **Sent:** 7 January 2014 09:36  
 **Subject:** RE: Large packages and great figures

Hi James,

You look like you need it. Go on.

Teddy

Edward Lupin  
Designer, Northern Supplies Ltd.

 

James thinks his previous response still stands. The guy is clearly insane. He does have a point – James doesn’t need to glance down to know that the outline of his erection is now painfully obvious in his light grey trousers that hide nothing and if James can see it, Teddy probably saw it too and if that’s not the single most mortifying thing to ever happen to James in his professional career he doesn’t know what is – but he’s still insane if he thinks James is just going to go casually toss himself off in the Gents.

 

**To:** Edward Lupin  <e.r.lupin@northernsupplies.co.uk>  
 **From:** James Potter  <j.s.potter@northernsupplies.co.uk>  
 **Sent:** 7 January 2014 09:38  
 **Subject:** Insanity

You’re joking, right? Anybody could walk in!

James Potter  
Purchasing Assistant, Northern Supplies Ltd.

 

James chances looking over to Teddy’s cubicle again, chewing furiously on his thumbnail and anxiously tapping his foot against the leg of his desk, but the smooth bastard is just quietly chatting with one of the Customer Care ladies as if he’s not currently in the middle of ordering a colleague to go get himself off next door. _Actually insane,_ James concludes as he watches Teddy turn back to his monitor.

 

**To:** James Potter  <j.s.potter@northernsupplies.co.uk>  
 **From:** Edward Lupin  <e.r.lupin@northernsupplies.co.uk>  
 **Sent:** 7 January 2014 09:39  
 **Subject:** Spontaneity

That’s what makes it fun.

Go on, I’ll make you a cup of tea if you go have a wank.

Edward Lupin  
Designer, Northern Supplies Ltd.

 

James’s eyes go wide and his tapping foot goes into overdrive. Frowning at his screen in simultaneous disbelief and frustration, he types out a hurried response.

 

**To:** Edward Lupin  <e.r.lupin@northernsupplies.co.uk>  
 **From:** James Potter  <j.s.potter@northernsupplies.co.uk>  
 **Sent:** 7 January 2014 09:39  
 **Subject:** RE: Spontaneity

What the hell kind of proposition is that??

James Potter  
Purchasing Assistant, Northern Supplies Ltd.

 

_Come on, come on,_ James’s subconscious – or libido, he’s not sure – urges as he chews his bottom lip distractedly, crossing and uncrossing then recrossing his legs, _anything_ to distract himself from the desperate situation in his lap. He’s not even sure what he’s waiting for. Another reply? An outright order to “Go, _now_ ” that will send him dutifully into the bathroom to relieve himself? Sudden, merciful death?

 

**To:** James Potter  <j.s.potter@northernsupplies.co.uk>  
 **From:** Edward Lupin  <e.r.lupin@northernsupplies.co.uk>  
 **Sent:** 7 January 2014 09:40  
 **Subject:** RE: Spontaneity

Last chance…

Edward Lupin  
Designer, Northern Supplies Ltd.

 

_Christ alive._ Last chance before _what_? Before the cup of tea offer is rescinded? Before Teddy pens an exposé on James’s visible arousal in an ‘All Users’ email so everyone can come over and laugh? Before _he_ comes over and pulls James bodily off his chair before taking him roughly over the desk, papers flying everywhere? James’s cock gives a desperate twitch at that last thought and James knows he only has one option now; hands still trembling and face still burning with heat, he pulls a file at random from his in-tray to cover his crotch then stands shakily, avoiding Teddy’s gaze at all costs. Eyes on the floor, he marches awkwardly across the room, pushing the bathroom door open hurriedly and barging into a cubicle before collapsing on the loo seat and fumbling to slide the latch.

***

Exactly two and a half minutes later, James scuttles quickly back across the office to his cubicle to find a steaming mug of tea and two chocolate digestive biscuits perched on top of his notepad.


	4. Chapter 4

“Do you need a lift?”

James looks up from his phone, directly into the almond eyes of his new full-time Adonis and part-time tormentor. Teddy’s already wrapped snuggly in his tartan scarf, stupid duffle coat togged all the way up and stupid grey knitted hat tugged down over that ridiculous turquoise mop. He looks positively divine, the dick.

“Just ‘cos it’s… you know…” Teddy laughs softly as he glances out of the first-storey window and James is surprised to notice that the outside world has completely disappeared behind thick, fast flurries of white flakes. It’s a testament to just how bloody distracting the whole tea wanking episode was that James hadn’t even noticed it had started snowing again.

James doesn’t own a car so his daily commute usually involves a crowded 15 minute bus ride through town, but there’s no way the local buses will be running in this weather so without a lift he’ll have to bloody walk and he’s wearing the most impractical shoes and it will take him bloody ages and he’ll get all wet, so he should definitely accept the gracious offer and maybe invite Teddy upstairs at the other end, make him a mug of hot chocolate to say thank you and then kneel on the floor between his legs and blow him in front of a roaring fire. Or at least, the old gas heater that he nicked from his dad’s garage last winter.

So Jesus only knows what commands him to shake his head vaguely, muttering something about needing the exercise as he tugs his own scarf out of his top drawer and tries to remember how to put it on.

“Oh, ok,” Teddy nods, his voice carrying the slightest edge of uncertainty that James hasn’t heard from him before and for Christ’s sake, all he needs to do is laugh and say “ _Just kidding, I’m not walking in this shit. I’d love a lift, mate,_ ” but he’s too busy putting his gloves on the wrong hands and tripping over his chair as he stands to leave.

“See you tomorrow, then?”

Teddy’s eyes match his cautious tone as he hoists his satchel higher onto his shoulder and offers James a tentative smile.

“Yep, you will,” James chuckles, even though there’s nothing remotely funny about it. Teddy smiles again before heading off towards the stairs, and James watches him go, wondering miserably if it might just be better all round to pitch himself out of the window into the snow and save the rest of humanity from having to deal with his embarrassing self ever again.

***

It takes James less than a minute to admit what a colossal mistake he’s made. His feet are soaked through, his hair saturated with freezing flakes and his nose feels about ready to drop off. To add insult to injury, he’s literally the only poor bugger out attempting to trudge through the rapidly thickening snow and he can almost hear the pity radiating from the passing traffic as each smug driver no doubt sighs with relief that they’re not outside too as they turn up their sodding heaters in their sodding cars. Arseholes.

The wind picks up and throws handful after handful of icy pellets in James’s general direction and he’s honestly one stumble away from just giving up and heading back to work, where there’s at least heating and a kettle and an old blanket under Diane’s desk that her aged Yorkie, Buttons, sleeps on when he inflicts himself upon the office.  A dog blanket and a night sleeping in the break room, surviving on old biscuits sounds heavenly right now, and James has resigned himself to the fact that he’s going to spend tomorrow smelling of terrier when he notices a beat-up Land Rover Defender signalling to pull in ten paces ahead of him. The passenger side window is being cranked down as James draws level with the car, and angels sing in exultation as he peers inside to see Teddy’s lovely face looking back at him, a small smile pulling at the corner of his mouth as he takes in James’s sorry appearance.

“Please let me give you a lift.”

He’s speaking a little louder to be heard over the passing traffic, the growing snowstorm and the rush of the heater as it blasts out mercifully warm air that James can feel on his cheeks from where he’s standing on the pavement, and it takes James all of half a second to throw any reservations to the freezing wind and yank open the door to clamber inside.

“Thanks,” he pants, melting into the worn leather seat as he tugs his sodden gloves off and scrunches his toes up inside his shoes to try get some feeling back in them, lest they fall off and he has to ask his rescuer to make a quick detour to A&E.

He stops moving entirely, however, when Teddy leans bodily across him with a murmured “Here…” to twist the vents above the glove compartment so that they’re blowing out welcome hot air into James’s lap, and it’s not until he moves away and signals to pull out that James can start breathing again.

“You’re crazy,” Teddy says with a gentle smile as they re-join the steady stream of traffic crawling up the high street.

“Ha… yeah,” James agrees quietly, rubbing the block of ice that used to be his nose. He’s horrified to find that it’s running with abandon, and he hastily wipes it on his sleeve whilst praying that Teddy is too busy concentrating on driving to notice.

“Listen…” Teddy starts, that edge of uncertainty from before creeping back into his voice, and James notes that he doesn’t really like hearing that there and he much prefers it when Teddy’s being cocksure and confident and telling him to go get himself off, now. “I’m sorry if I was a bit forward, before…”

His voice trails off quietly as he glances across at James and taps the index finger of his left hand against the top of the gear stick in what James is certain is just a nervous tic, but nevertheless immediately conjures images of that same finger doing similar things to different objects and makes it difficult to concentrate on what’s being said, let alone what the appropriate answer is.

“No, it’s… fine…”

_Worst answer ever. Try again._

“I mean, I was a bit erm… surprised,” he says softly as he resolutely blames the sudden temperature change for the way his cheeks are burning. “Cos I’m not really used to like, y’know… getting turned on at work…”

He can feel the flush in his cheeks spreading to his entire face as the Albus-voice in his head screams at him to _shut the fuck up, you idiot, you’re literally so embarrassing_ and Teddy glances sideways again, his finger still doing that maddening _tap, tap, tap_ on the gear stick.

“But like, y’know. I mean…” _Oh Jesus in heaven, what happened to being able to string a sentence together, James? What happened to that university education? What happened to being able to talk to other humans without sounding like such a fucking headcase?_

He clears his throat and shrugs awkwardly.

“It was… really nice?” 

_Kill me_ , he thinks miserably. _Just crash the car and end it._

He’s spared grabbing the wheel and doing the job himself, though, when he hears Teddy chuckle softly as the traffic slowly starts moving again.

“Nice is good,” Teddy nods, and James can hear from his tone that shy, unsure Edward has gone back to bed and confident, flirtatious, gift-from-above Teddy is back in the room. Or car.

“As long as you don’t think I’m some kind of letch,” he continues, looking across at James with a gentle expression. “Cos I swear I didn’t mean it like that. I just think you’re really cute,” he finishes with a shrug.

The angels are back and they’re singing again, and it’s all James can do to not have some kind of coronary over being called “really cute” by such a faultless being as Teddy Lupin.

He turns his head to hide a smile, and wonders absently whether Teddy might agree to a winter wedding.

***

“It’s just this one here...”

The Defender pulls up carefully outside the old townhouse, Teddy expertly manoeuvring it over the lethal-looking slick of ice that has become the side of James’s road.

“Wow,” Teddy smiles, pulling the handbrake on and flicking the ignition off. “Gorgeous house.”

The heater keeps churning out hot air even as the engine dies, and James really, really doesn’t want to get out of the car. Because it’s so warm. Not for any other reason. Certainly not because, in the forty-five minutes it’s taken them to get across town, he’s become more convinced than ever that Teddy is his soulmate, other half, missing piece or whatever other cliché James might find inside the hundreds of “Congratulations on your engagement!” cards the two of them are sure to receive in the near future. Since leaving the office, James has learnt that Teddy is originally from Edinburgh but then moved to Cumbria when he was ten, which explains the gloriously confused lilting accent that only comes out on certain words, like when he talks about how his favourite food is chocolate with a long _“o”_ sound, and his passion for “graphic design” with a soft, melodic _“a”_ that has James practically drooling all over his now almost-dry jacket. He learns that Teddy doesn’t have any family in the area, and that he’d love a dog but he’s not allowed one in his new terrace, and that he’s been dyeing his hair turquoise since he was fifteen but doesn’t say what prompted the choice to start with. He almost passes out when the conversation turns back to That Ann Summers Contract and Teddy makes what may or may not be a joke about having to test the merchandise to get a “real feel for the branding”, and Teddy must notice how James turns bright red for the eighteenth time because then he’s laughing softly and apologising for being forward again and James mutters something along the lines of “No, it’s fine, honestly, it’s nice” in a strained voice and _God, someone send help._

“Yeah,” James agrees distractedly now, a little breathless as he struggles past the lingering images of sample vibrators and tanned skin and _research_ , and there’s a long silence before he realises he should be talking and he gushes out a garbled “It’s erm, it’s not the whole house. I mean, I’m not the whole house. The attic. Is where I live…”

He nods slowly, back to wishing the car had skidded on the ice and he was in A Better Place if only to save him from making even more of a tit of himself. Still, Teddy hadn’t pulled over and kicked him out in the middle of town as James reasons he would’ve been well within his rights to do, so maybe he’s finding James’s wanky ineptitude in being normal sort of _endearing_. Or at the very least, tolerable.

Teddy smiles.

“Well… see you tomorrow?”

James’s tired mind is already running too many fuzzy circles to try and draw meaning from the subtle but definitely present trace of hopefulness in Teddy’s question, so he settles for a nod, and a smile, and a “Thanks for the lift” as he reaches for the door and clambers out into the still swirling snowstorm.

“Oh, tits.”

He glances back in the direction of the sorrowful cursing to see Teddy twisting the key in the ignition repeatedly, the engine chugging desperately with each turn but never catching and a few more turns of the key sees the heater click off and the engine give up completely, the whole car seemingly having gone to sleep. Teddy groans and closes his eyes as he leans back against the headrest.

“It does this sometimes,” he says dejectedly as James hovers awkwardly in the no-man’s land between Teddy and the unreasonably cold street outside. “It’s the battery, sometimes it just…” he waves his hand vaguely at the hood of the Defender. “Gives up. And I just have to leave it for a while until it decides it wants to work again. _Bugger_.”

James has never been one to believe in Fate. Not really, anyway. Certainly not in the sense of “everything happens for a reason” because sometimes, shit just happens and that’s all there is to it and trying to assign reason to it retrospectively is surely just the act of somebody desperate to believe that there’s someone or something out there keeping an eye on everyone. James has always pretty firmly subscribed to this theory of the universe generally not giving a shit, but the Defender’s dead battery has just presented him with an almighty crisis of faith because now the beautiful Teddy is stranded, alone, cold, scared – _well, maybe not scared, but still_ – and James lives _right there_ and he has hot chocolate and a warm shower and a soft fake sheepskin rug that’s really gentle on the knees and honestly, what kind of gift from _God_?

“Do you want to sleep over?”

_Great, you sound about five. Why don’t you offer to braid his hair whilst you’re at it?_

_Idiot._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it has been literally a year since I updated this... a thousand apologies...
> 
> I'll try get my shit together and actually finish this before Christmas, I promise. 
> 
> Enjoy! x

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments/kudos help me out a LOT. Let me know if you would like more of this x


End file.
